Nodaway County native to give presentation on two books inspired by Battle of the Little Bighorn

On Saturday, March 15, Author Lance Dorrel will be giving a presentation at Maryville Public Library on the research that led to two books centered on the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

“A Dance with Death: An Irish Soldier of Fortune” is a historical novel based on the adventures of Captain Myles Keogh, a US Civil War veteran who served under General Custer in that epic battle. Dorrel’s 2024 nonfiction book titled “The History They Tell” shares stories passed down through the Native American tribes that were victorious that day, as collected from 250 tribal descendants.

The Battle of the Little Bighorn was a significant 1876 confrontation that occurred in present-day Montana where warriors from Lakota, Cheyenne and other tribes defeated US Army troops led by George Armstrong Custer.

Dorrel is a native of Maryville and has studied the Battle of the Little Bighorn since he was a young boy reading in the local public and university libraries. By 2010, Dorrel had begun to consult Native Americans and First Nations People of Canada regarding their involvement in the battle.  As a developing ethnographer, historian and writer, he made numerous trips to the Montana battlefield and to Native American reservations where he worked with residents to collect hundreds of interviews with Native American descendants.

In 2016, Dorrel and co-author Northern Cheyenne Tribal Historian Donovan Taylor worked with elders of the Cheyenne, Arapaho and Lakota tribes to complete the research needed for “The History They Tell”.

Dorrel’s presentation begins at 1 pm in the library’s main floor adult reading area. The event is free and open to the public.